﻿Indiscipline: When Indecisiveness Destroys Your Future

Laws are made and
meant to be obeyed. The purpose of making laws is to bring some degree of
sanity and coherence in our rather incoherent, chaotic environment. But that is
not enough, sanity and coherency go beyond the environmental improvement; they
equally affect every part of your life – and your future. You don’t have to crack your brain further
thinking how this is the case. I’ll help explain.

Without sentiments, could you kindly write down about five countries you consider “developed” and make another list of five countries you would rather call “less developed?” You may call the former list A, and the latter B. Do your research very well and find out how the laws are made and applied in the countries on your list A and whether the application of the laws are discriminatory or indiscriminately in those countries. Ask yourself how the spirit of and importance of lawfulness is inculcated in the citizens – irrespective who you are – right from their youth. In other words, are the laws made for everyone to be obeyed, regardless of your social status, gender, ideology etc.? Are people from the countries that make up the A list naturally more intelligent (let us assume we have the same definition of “intelligence,” a difficult concept to define)? Absolutely not. Do people take laws into their hands in those countries under list A? Hardly any. Most importantly, if they do, are they quickly reprimanded or punished for that? Generally, yes. Now, kindly take a closer look at your other list containing countries you consider “less developed” and apply the same principle and parameter. The result is clear: countries where the rule of law rules, perform much better in terms of development – infrastructural and economic development, security, etc. Above all, citizens from the A list countries have a much better future than those in group B. Those in group B are more likely to live in challenging life circumstances with a highly precarious future. Are you still in doubt?

Imagine you had an accident, and your life was in danger; the only thing that could save your life was an ambulance. Someone saw your dire condition and wanted to render help. They called the ambulance service. But the ambulance could not be reached simply because of network problems. Eventually, after many fruitless attempts, the ambulance department came online, lucky you, you might say. Hold your breath! The desperately needed ambulance could not arrive quickly – or at all. Reasons? One of the bosses at the ambulance department had illegally gone out with the ambulance to pick up a family member or friend, who just arrived on a visit? Does this sound too extreme – although it is not really strange in the African political territory? What about an excuse that there was “no fuel” to drive the ambulance – even though the government had budgeted enough money for the ambulance fuel. Yes, “no fuel” because some shrewd, unscrupulous individuals had channeled the money meant for the ambulance fuel for their personal use. Would you be surprised to hear that the fuel meant for the ambulance found its way to the filling station instead, while money collected from such a deal landed in the pocket of one of the bosses at the ambulance department? Wonders shall not end. But how can wonders end when indiscipline has been tolerated, and your future mortgaged due to the legitimization of indiscipline in your society? The result: depending on the seriousness of your accident, you might most likely die from it due to lack of immediate, much needed medical attention. Yes, death, caused by mere indiscipline! You may call such an irresponsible act, an act of indiscipline or negligence. You may call it whatever you choose, but such a situation, though regrettable it might be, it is definitely preventable. We only need to be decisive if we really want to tackle it. An alternative is to expect obvious chaos and a destructive future. The question is: Could a situation like the above have been avoided if we were disciplined enough to stick to the law? Absolutely, yes. If we all agree that the above situation is preventable, then one could ask why we could not take the necessary steps to prevent the occurrence of such a situation.

With this last
question lingering in our minds, one could argue that the biggest problem
facing humanity in various societies is not lack of knowledge of our problems,
but our indecisiveness to tackle them. Take a closer look at Africa and ask
yourself how many of them are performing well economically, socially and
politically. It is because Africa is poor or Africans stupid. No. Hardly the
case! Is there a clear relationship between indiscipline in those poorer or
less developed countries and their lack of strong development? There definitely
is. Tell me any country that is indecisiveness or nonchalant on indiscipline,
which is doing well socially, politically and economically, and I will mention
ten of the opposite.

But tackling a problem requires a well understanding of it and knowledge of the cause of it. It all starts with education. Education does not only mean what you learn from the classrooms. No, it goes far beyond that. If you do not know where the boundary exists, you will most likely cross it. Clearly, in most cases, indiscipline exits due to lack of the will or inability to enforce the existing rules. If rules are enforced judiciously regardless whom they affect, the result will be a progressive society; but that is not the case in Africa and in many other regions where indiscipline has a strong taproot. Furthermore, to enforce the rules requires strong and reliable leadership, which is obviously lacking in most societies, where indiscipline is the order of the day. Of course, bad leadership comes with other social ills like nepotism, favouritism and other chronic social hindrance, which draw the developmental clock back in many societies. In most cases, in a place where you have bad leadership, the citizens are hardly motivated. Leaders are supposed to show examples; when this is not the case, lack of motivation sets in.

The result of all
these is a life full of social challenges and aimless uncertainties. A dark
future. Of course, to many of us, we might turn a blind eye on indiscipline,
believing it is a minor social headache. But alas, you are mistaken. Almost
every single problem facing you in your society is, one way or another, a
product of indiscipline. What you might consider a mere problem in the society
could turn out to be an acute social cankerworm or a giant social hippopotamus
that could swallow your life and turn your future blurred. It is time to tackle
indiscipline head-on to create a better progress society, as well as a bright
future.